Dragon Ball Movies HD Remaster - Amazon Video/Netflix Japan - Discussion Thread

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Re: Dragon Ball Movies HD Remaster - Amazon Video/Netflix Japan - Discussion Thread

Post by Robo4900 » Tue Jan 01, 2019 2:36 pm

ABED wrote:
Robo4900 wrote:
JohnnyCashKami wrote: There are two things most consumers don't like:

1. Grain
2. Black bars
Wrong.

No one actually cares.

You'll see some people complain about it on Amazon reviews, but no one actually cares.
You don't think consumers care about black bars?
No.

I think if given the choice of black bars vs no black bars, most people would choose no black bars, but no one really cares. It's like asking people how wide they like movies at the cinema; most people would probably say very wide, since then the screen expands to be really big, but realistically, people just want to watch their movie and enjoy it.
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Re: Dragon Ball Movies HD Remaster - Amazon Video/Netflix Japan - Discussion Thread

Post by ABED » Tue Jan 01, 2019 3:11 pm

What's your basis for that statement? Granted, mine is anecdotal, but for years both in my personal life and when I worked at video stores, I heard plenty of complaints about black bars. Most people don't understand aspect ratios and just want the picture to fill the screen.
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Re: Dragon Ball Movies HD Remaster - Amazon Video/Netflix Japan - Discussion Thread

Post by Robo4900 » Tue Jan 01, 2019 3:28 pm

ABED wrote:What's your basis for that statement? Granted, mine is anecdotal, but for years both in my personal life and when I worked at video stores, I heard plenty of complaints about black bars. Most people don't understand aspect ratios and just want the picture to fill the screen.
Well, I can't really cite anything in particular, but it's my general experience. And everything to the contrary has been as anecdotal as the complaints you heard. You look on Amazon reviews for stuff like Star Trek TNG's HD master, and you'll see a couple of people complaining about it, but everyone else is just praising it for being a HD presentation of the show, not paying any mind to aspect ratios, bars, etc.
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Re: Dragon Ball Movies HD Remaster - Amazon Video/Netflix Japan - Discussion Thread

Post by ABED » Tue Jan 01, 2019 3:38 pm

Robo4900 wrote:
ABED wrote:What's your basis for that statement? Granted, mine is anecdotal, but for years both in my personal life and when I worked at video stores, I heard plenty of complaints about black bars. Most people don't understand aspect ratios and just want the picture to fill the screen.
Well, I can't really cite anything in particular, but it's my general experience. And everything to the contrary has been as anecdotal as the complaints you heard. You look on Amazon reviews for stuff like Star Trek TNG's HD master, and you'll see a couple of people complaining about it, but everyone else is just praising it for being a HD presentation of the show, not paying any mind to aspect ratios, bars, etc.
And yet we get old shows changing aspect ratios from 4:3 despite not being framed for widescreen. DBZ, Buffy, Friends, X-Files, The Wire, etc. have all been made into widescreen shows because there's a demand for it.
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Re: Dragon Ball Movies HD Remaster - Amazon Video/Netflix Japan - Discussion Thread

Post by Robo4900 » Tue Jan 01, 2019 3:46 pm

ABED wrote:
Robo4900 wrote:
ABED wrote:What's your basis for that statement? Granted, mine is anecdotal, but for years both in my personal life and when I worked at video stores, I heard plenty of complaints about black bars. Most people don't understand aspect ratios and just want the picture to fill the screen.
Well, I can't really cite anything in particular, but it's my general experience. And everything to the contrary has been as anecdotal as the complaints you heard. You look on Amazon reviews for stuff like Star Trek TNG's HD master, and you'll see a couple of people complaining about it, but everyone else is just praising it for being a HD presentation of the show, not paying any mind to aspect ratios, bars, etc.
And yet we get old shows changing aspect ratios from 4:3 despite not being framed for widescreen. DBZ, Buffy, Friends, X-Files, The Wire, etc. have all been made into widescreen shows because there's a demand for it.
There are people who vaguely complain about it, so the studios at one point listened and bowed to their will because they thought pleasing them would reduce complaints overall, and give the best results. When widescreen was new, and DVD was just coming out, everything new was widescreen, so... Must appease everyone and make everything fit your brand new TV...

But, there's a reason most companies aren't doing this these days; Star Trek TNG is 4:3, Batman: The Animated Series is 4:3, classic Doctor Who has always been 4:3, etc. Cropping right now is significantly in the minority. Companies are realising it creates more problems than it solves.

Though, I will note, some shows it is actually justified to do it widescreen instead of 4:3. Friends, they aren't cropping; it's all opening the framing out. And in the case of Friends, it actually does kind of work. Buffy is an example of this being attempted and not working right, and TNG didn't do it, because it'd end up like Buffy... But, Friends in widescreen ends up working surprisingly well.
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Re: Dragon Ball Movies HD Remaster - Amazon Video/Netflix Japan - Discussion Thread

Post by BlazingFiddlesticks » Tue Jan 01, 2019 4:01 pm

When we're talking about people "caring", I think we refer less to the 16:9 presentation of 4:3 TV shows, a newer "artistic" concern and question, and more to the decades of 4:3 cropped theatrical movies, which were in part an object of the physical size of a lot of CRT televisions but also a response to casual viewers asking why the proper image was so small. And the thought process behind the latter certainly hasn't gone away, the switch to 16:9 TVs making theatrical aspect ratios look better just removed the central point of contention that the most people would have an opinion on.
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Just like Dragon Ball since Chapter #4.
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Re: Dragon Ball Movies HD Remaster - Amazon Video/Netflix Japan - Discussion Thread

Post by ABED » Tue Jan 01, 2019 4:41 pm

The same problem that happened with Buffy happened with Friends. You are seeing more of the frame than you should, so things like boom mics are showing up in shots, or in some cases, you see stand ins instead of the actors.
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Re: Dragon Ball Movies HD Remaster - Amazon Video/Netflix Japan - Discussion Thread

Post by Robo4900 » Tue Jan 01, 2019 5:31 pm

ABED wrote:The same problem that happened with Buffy happened with Friends. You are seeing more of the frame than you should, so things like boom mics are showing up in shots, or in some cases, you see stand ins instead of the actors.
The point is, since Friends is a multi-cam show generally assembled with much freer-flowing cameras, and with wider sets and filming-safe areas, you'll never see anything you're not supposed to unless you're freeze-framing looking for this stuff. It's easy to find a bunch of screenshots that say "look! you can see this in hd! literally unwatchable!!", but in reality, it's like the moving bloodstain in Wrath Of Khan; you'll won't really notice it unless you're looking for it.

Buffy, being a single-camera effects-heavy fantasy/horror drama, constantly has lighting equipment, stand-ins, edges of sets, lack of SFX, etc. in the expanded viewing area. Hell, in at least one case, a guy who's "turned invisible" is literally just standing outside of the standard frame... But inside the expanded widescreen frame. So unlike Friends, Buffy doesn't work expanded out. And even if it did work, the widescreen presentation barely scratches the surface of the sheer incompetence pervading every level of Buffy's HD master.
Though even with all this considered, the first season of Buffy isn't expanded out. At least, not all of it. A significant portion is cropped down, as are various sections of later seasons, due to the fact large-format elements don't exist for the whole run; even for episodes shot like that, they don't always have those elements in existence. Hell, a lot of the SFX shots are simply upscaled & cropped from the original 4:3 finished SD masters.

Buffy being bad in HD is an entirely different issue from whether or not Friends' HD masters were all that well done. Hell, at least with Friends' HD masters, you could make the argument that you could just crop it down and fix the only potential criticism; Buffy, not so much.

One thing I would say for Buffy's HD master is that it was probably done like it was because it was produced as a TV HD master by Fox, so they wanted it widescreen for TV purposes, since basically any TV station will only air something if it fits a full widescreen frame; even reairing an older 4:3 show, most western TV crops down to widescreen. Some British TV just stretches the image out, in fact!
And all the general issues of incompetence involved in Buffy's HD master, such as the missing SFX, lack of post-production colour-correction in shots(Such as day shoots that are supposed to appear as night), the over-DNRing, even the lack of consideration done in the widescreen expansion, can all be attributed to it being done as cheaply as possible as a TV-only HD master. Meanwhile, Friends' restoration, as well as Next Gen's, Batman: The Animated Series', etc. were done as definitive HD restorations for home release, streaming, future TV airings, the works.
Funimation's cropped masters of Z were done as cheap cash-ins so they could market it as "WIDESCREEN HD MASTERS!!!!!!!! UNCUTT!!!!" all that edgy nonsense. And of course, cropping down also means they don't have to deal with the tape marks and glue.

You'll notice this with a lot of HD masters; if it's a badly widescreen-converted one, it's probably a crappy, cheap, rush job. Meanwhile, if it's kept its original framing, or often if it's a sitcom with an expanded frame, it'll usually be a more proper restoration.

So... That's my uhh... many, many cents on the subject. I think I went a bit stream of consciousness there. :lol:
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Re: Dragon Ball Movies HD Remaster - Amazon Video/Netflix Japan - Discussion Thread

Post by JohnnyCashKami » Tue Jan 01, 2019 6:48 pm

Robo4900 wrote:Wrong.

No one actually cares.

You'll see some people complain about it on Amazon reviews, but no one actually cares.
You seem unnecessarily upset and aggressive but I digress, people do care because if they didn't then companies wouldn't stretch or crop series and films to 16x9 AR. If shows and movies in 4x3 AR weren't something that people "cared" about then TV broadcasters would just air them without stupidly stretching it to 16x9 AR and making it look weird.

In this case, I end up on having to change my TV's AR to 4x3 AR because the broadcaster stretched it to 16x9 AR. I hate that they do this but I get it, the majority of their viewers prefer to have the entire screen filled in without having black bars around.
BlazingFiddlesticks wrote:When we're talking about people "caring", I think we refer less to the 16:9 presentation of 4:3 TV shows, a newer "artistic" concern and question, and more to the decades of 4:3 cropped theatrical movies, which were in part an object of the physical size of a lot of CRT televisions but also a response to casual viewers asking why the proper image was so small. And the thought process behind the latter certainly hasn't gone away, the switch to 16:9 TVs making theatrical aspect ratios look better just removed the central point of contention that the most people would have an opinion on.
That's a good point. Customers might not care but it might bother them so while care isn't the same as bother, companies tend to find one solution for everything. Stretching or cropping it for TV is something a lot do.

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Re: Dragon Ball Movies HD Remaster - Amazon Video/Netflix Japan - Discussion Thread

Post by Robo4900 » Tue Jan 01, 2019 7:30 pm

JohnnyCashKami wrote:You seem unnecessarily upset and aggressive
I am confident in my beliefs, that's all. I often come off a bit strong online, but as my sig says, we're not on this asteroid for very long; let's try to be nice to one another. I try to take these words to heart. For the record, I consider this discussion to be the equivalent of a bunch of people sitting round a table at a pub, beer or lemonade or whatever in hand, having a chill discussion about our favourite show.
JohnnyCashKami wrote:people do care because if they didn't then companies wouldn't stretch or crop series and films to 16x9 AR.
Plenty of companies make stupid decisions because a tiny minority said something stupid that no one else cared about, which the company responded to in a rather extreme way, which made things terrible for everyone, and now we suddenly do have to care about it on the off chance our objections to this cockup might make a difference...
JohnnyCashKami wrote:the majority of their viewers prefer to have the entire screen filled in without having black bars around.
A. Source?
B. Prefer =/= will not watch without this being the case. As I said in an earlier post: I think if given the choice of black bars vs no black bars, most people would choose no black bars, but no one really cares. It's like asking people how wide they like movies at the cinema; most people would probably say very wide, since then the screen expands to be really big, but realistically, people just want to watch their movie and enjoy it.
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Re: Dragon Ball Movies HD Remaster - Amazon Video/Netflix Japan - Discussion Thread

Post by ABED » Tue Jan 01, 2019 7:50 pm

Robo4900 wrote:
ABED wrote:The same problem that happened with Buffy happened with Friends. You are seeing more of the frame than you should, so things like boom mics are showing up in shots, or in some cases, you see stand ins instead of the actors.
The point is, since Friends is a multi-cam show generally assembled with much freer-flowing cameras, and with wider sets and filming-safe areas, you'll never see anything you're not supposed to unless you're freeze-framing looking for this stuff. It's easy to find a bunch of screenshots that say "look! you can see this in hd! literally unwatchable!!", but in reality, it's like the moving bloodstain in Wrath Of Khan; you'll won't really notice it unless you're looking for it.

Buffy, being a single-camera effects-heavy fantasy/horror drama, constantly has lighting equipment, stand-ins, edges of sets, lack of SFX, etc. in the expanded viewing area. Hell, in at least one case, a guy who's "turned invisible" is literally just standing outside of the standard frame... But inside the expanded widescreen frame. So unlike Friends, Buffy doesn't work expanded out. And even if it did work, the widescreen presentation barely scratches the surface of the sheer incompetence pervading every level of Buffy's HD master.
Though even with all this considered, the first season of Buffy isn't expanded out. At least, not all of it. A significant portion is cropped down, as are various sections of later seasons, due to the fact large-format elements don't exist for the whole run; even for episodes shot like that, they don't always have those elements in existence. Hell, a lot of the SFX shots are simply upscaled & cropped from the original 4:3 finished SD masters.

Buffy being bad in HD is an entirely different issue from whether or not Friends' HD masters were all that well done. Hell, at least with Friends' HD masters, you could make the argument that you could just crop it down and fix the only potential criticism; Buffy, not so much.

One thing I would say for Buffy's HD master is that it was probably done like it was because it was produced as a TV HD master by Fox, so they wanted it widescreen for TV purposes, since basically any TV station will only air something if it fits a full widescreen frame; even reairing an older 4:3 show, most western TV crops down to widescreen. Some British TV just stretches the image out, in fact!
And all the general issues of incompetence involved in Buffy's HD master, such as the missing SFX, lack of post-production colour-correction in shots(Such as day shoots that are supposed to appear as night), the over-DNRing, even the lack of consideration done in the widescreen expansion, can all be attributed to it being done as cheaply as possible as a TV-only HD master. Meanwhile, Friends' restoration, as well as Next Gen's, Batman: The Animated Series', etc. were done as definitive HD restorations for home release, streaming, future TV airings, the works.
Funimation's cropped masters of Z were done as cheap cash-ins so they could market it as "WIDESCREEN HD MASTERS!!!!!!!! UNCUTT!!!!" all that edgy nonsense. And of course, cropping down also means they don't have to deal with the tape marks and glue.

You'll notice this with a lot of HD masters; if it's a badly widescreen-converted one, it's probably a crappy, cheap, rush job. Meanwhile, if it's kept its original framing, or often if it's a sitcom with an expanded frame, it'll usually be a more proper restoration.

So... That's my uhh... many, many cents on the subject. I think I went a bit stream of consciousness there. :lol:
You are flat out incorrect with the Friends example. I'm constantly seeing things in the frame that I'm not supposed to see. It being multicam has little to do with the issue. I'm not freeze framing either. Granted I've seen the show a lot, but it's still things I shouldn't see simply because some people have a hard on for watching a frame that fills their entire TV. With Buffy it's worse. You don't have to give me a history lesson about the masters and HD, cropping, etc For one, I'm well aware, but more important, none of that matters since the target audience for this stuff isn't aficionados anyway. The target is mainstream viewers who are ignorant about it all. All they care is about size, price, and relative picture quality. They also like for the picture to fill the screen. Whether the effect is achieved by cropping or expanding the frame isn't important. You're splitting hairs. You said people don't care. Clearly they do, which is why these changes were made.

Even if DB had used a more expensive and time consuming process, it still would've sucked. It was designed for 4:3. The best they could do is a better/worse job of messing with the image.
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Re: Dragon Ball Movies HD Remaster - Amazon Video/Netflix Japan - Discussion Thread

Post by Robo4900 » Tue Jan 01, 2019 8:36 pm

ABED wrote:It being multicam has little to do with the issue.
Well, the theory here is that since it's multicam, the sets are designed and the scenes are generally blocked, lit, and set up such that pretty much every possible angle looks okay, so expanding out the frame would generally be fine.

Admittedly, I haven't seen a huge ton of the widescreen Friends, so maybe I've just been lucky.
ABED wrote:With Buffy it's worse. You don't have to give me a history lesson about the masters and HD, cropping, etc For one, I'm well aware
What I was going for was that the cropping is just one of a mountain of issues. Much like the crappy Funi masters of Z, it's a clusterfuck from start to finish, so of course it got cropped at some point in the long list of stupid decisions that went into its HD mastering.
ABED wrote:but more important, none of that matters since the target audience for this stuff isn't aficionados anyway. The target is mainstream viewers who are ignorant about it all. All they care is about size, price, and relative picture quality. They also like for the picture to fill the screen. Whether the effect is achieved by cropping or expanding the frame isn't important. You're splitting hairs. You said people don't care. Clearly they do, which is why these changes were made.
Again, I would say it's less a case of people caring about this to any real degree, more that if they're given the choice of a wider frame, such as in a survey, they'd say "oh sure, fill more of my screen.", but if someone's going to buy or watch a show, they'll just watch the damn show. Average person doesn't care about such nitpicky nonsense, they just want to enjoy watching the show. It does mean that if a company screws up real bad, all the consumer sees is "it fits my screen, it's hd, i'm happy", but it doesn't mean people are actively saying "MUST FILL SCREEN OR I DON'T BUY"
ABED wrote:Even if DB had used a more expensive and time consuming process, it still would've sucked. It was designed for 4:3. The best they could do is a better/worse job of messing with the image.
Well, the general point there was that if it had been a more expensive, time-consuming process, they would have had the sense to frame it in 4:3.
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Re: Dragon Ball Movies HD Remaster - Amazon Video/Netflix Japan - Discussion Thread

Post by jaisonas » Wed Jan 02, 2019 4:04 am

For most mainstream users, fixing the 4:3 ratio is as easy as clicking stretch to side/window on their tv and quite a lot of people actually do this.
Destroying the video by cropping it to satisfy a minority who already has a solution to their problem is unacceptable.
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Re: Dragon Ball Movies HD Remaster - Amazon Video/Netflix Japan - Discussion Thread

Post by KBABZ » Wed Jan 02, 2019 5:05 am

jaisonas wrote:For most mainstream users, fixing the 4:3 ratio is as easy as clicking stretch to side/window on their tv and quite a lot of people actually do this.
Destroying the video by cropping it to satisfy a minority who already has a solution to their problem is unacceptable.
Worth noting though that Kai has its video presented as a widescreen picture that has 4:3 footage in the middle. Not only is that a waste of disk space, but more pertinently almost all TVs won't allow you to zoom in on that because the picture is already widescreen and thus the TV sees it as taking up all of the screen.

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Re: Dragon Ball Movies HD Remaster - Amazon Video/Netflix Japan - Discussion Thread

Post by Baggie_Saiyan » Wed Jan 02, 2019 8:41 am

Robo4900 wrote:
JohnnyCashKami wrote:
HakkaiBills93 wrote:it look as DNR as some bluray movies so i suggest this one not beeing the "raw" footage but the final product
only people that have seen this one in US theater can maybe say if it look the same
There are two things most consumers don't like:

1. Grain
2. Black bars
Wrong.

No one actually cares.

You'll see some people complain about it on Amazon reviews, but no one actually cares.
Right. Look at most films they have black bars on the top and bottom and I barely see anyone complain about it. Whenever I watch films with family I always anticipate they'd ask why the screen isn't full but they never do.

I used to think I cared but ultimately I realised I didn't and you get used to black bars pretty quickly, one of the reasons I just got rid of my Z BDs.

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Re: Dragon Ball Movies HD Remaster - Amazon Video/Netflix Japan - Discussion Thread

Post by KBABZ » Wed Jan 02, 2019 9:43 am

Baggie_Saiyan wrote:you get used to black bars pretty quickly
Agreed, when I first got back into Dragon Ball and watched the Blue Bricks up on the big screen it looked quite strange, but by the end of an episode you barely even see it.

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Re: Dragon Ball Movies HD Remaster - Amazon Video/Netflix Japan - Discussion Thread

Post by superfan2024 » Wed Jan 02, 2019 10:41 am

OK, to sum it all up, which remaster for each movie is the best? Can someone list these out? Do the streaming services have 100 better masters within all of the movies compared to the Blu-Ray, or are there exceptions?

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Re: Dragon Ball Movies HD Remaster - Amazon Video/Netflix Japan - Discussion Thread

Post by Robo4900 » Wed Jan 02, 2019 11:29 am

superfan2024 wrote:OK, to sum it all up, which remaster for each movie is the best? Can someone list these out? Do the streaming services have 100 better masters within all of the movies compared to the Blu-Ray, or are there exceptions?
Okay, first piece of info: Both widescreen and full-frame 4:3 are valid ways of watching the movies. Widescreen was how it was meant to be seen in cinemas, but the full frame was animated for TV presentations and such.

With that in mind, if you either don't mind, or prefer widescreen, you'll want to go for the streamed Toei masters of all the movies. It's just a really great master. Best there's been so far.

If you prefer 4:3, you'll need to pick up the DVD singles of all the Z movies(Specifically the Ultimate Uncut singles for Z 1-3, though if you prefer watching dubbed, the original Pioneer singles would be better), and get ahold of the streamed Funi masters of the OG DB movies except for Sleeping Princess, which you'll have to get from the original DVD single, due to framerate issues.
If you want to get a bit technical, you can upgrade the visuals of Z movies 7-11 quite significantly by using the French DVD box set, but you'll have to rip them onto your PC, and use either encoding flags or recontainment metadata to adjust the framerate to run properly, and then screw around with getting the audio to sync up exactly(I've done this in the past; it's a bit fiddly, but I can give you some pointers on it).

Really, it's just easiest and best to stick with the Toei HD streamed masters, though. They're the best these movies have ever looked, and the 1.85:1 ratio they were intended to be seen in during the original cinema run is used, so you're seeing a presentation very true to the original look of these films.
Baggie_Saiyan wrote:Right. Look at most films they have black bars on the top and bottom and I barely see anyone complain about it. Whenever I watch films with family I always anticipate they'd ask why the screen isn't full but they never do.

I used to think I cared but ultimately I realised I didn't and you get used to black bars pretty quickly, one of the reasons I just got rid of my Z BDs.
Indeed.

Hell, the new Toei masters of the movies -- as I mentioned above -- are 1.85:1, and thus create black bars at the top and bottom of the screen for any 16:9(1.777777...:1) monitor. Does anyone care? No; everyone's too busy praising them for how good they look.
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Re: Dragon Ball Movies HD Remaster - Amazon Video/Netflix Japan - Discussion Thread

Post by Puto » Thu Jan 03, 2019 12:16 pm

KBABZ wrote:
jaisonas wrote:For most mainstream users, fixing the 4:3 ratio is as easy as clicking stretch to side/window on their tv and quite a lot of people actually do this.
Destroying the video by cropping it to satisfy a minority who already has a solution to their problem is unacceptable.
Worth noting though that Kai has its video presented as a widescreen picture that has 4:3 footage in the middle. Not only is that a waste of disk space, but more pertinently almost all TVs won't allow you to zoom in on that because the picture is already widescreen and thus the TV sees it as taking up all of the screen.
Blu-rays have to be 16:9. The standard literally does not allow for a 4:3 video feed.
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Re: Dragon Ball Movies HD Remaster - Amazon Video/Netflix Japan - Discussion Thread

Post by SuperSaiyanPan » Thu Jan 03, 2019 4:15 pm

Puto wrote:
KBABZ wrote:
jaisonas wrote:For most mainstream users, fixing the 4:3 ratio is as easy as clicking stretch to side/window on their tv and quite a lot of people actually do this.
Destroying the video by cropping it to satisfy a minority who already has a solution to their problem is unacceptable.
Worth noting though that Kai has its video presented as a widescreen picture that has 4:3 footage in the middle. Not only is that a waste of disk space, but more pertinently almost all TVs won't allow you to zoom in on that because the picture is already widescreen and thus the TV sees it as taking up all of the screen.
Blu-rays have to be 16:9. The standard literally does not allow for a 4:3 video feed.
What about the level sets?

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